Native Plants
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Thursday - July 01, 2010
From: Alloway, NJ
Region: Northeast
Topic: Planting, Wildflowers
Title: Digging up and transplanting wild plants in Alloway NJ
Answered by: Barbara Medford
QUESTION:
I saw some wild growing black eyed susans in a passing field so I dug some up this weekend and planted them in my garden now they look like they are dying. Do you think they will come back next year ? Or maybe the whole plant is now dead.ANSWER:
Okay, three mistakes:
(1) First mistake, you dug up and removed plants from a property that was not yours and (we assume) you did not get permission from the landowner to do so. Those plants may have been planted by the highway department to beautify the area or by the landowner for the same reason.
(2) If these had been endangered plants, removing them from their habitat could have been the last straw in the extinction of a species.
(3) Digging up and moving a whole plant, in bloom, in summer, without special precautions, not only means the plant is dead, but it has lost the opportunity to set seeds for next year.
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